Favorite student emails

[the_geneticist]

I think they see it as a moral judgment that you have found them to be a "bad person", rather than an indication that they have not sufficiently mastered the concepts & content.

[Aster]

Ugh. Got one of my least favorite whiney emails today in one of the classes I co-teach, which included:
I'm a 4.0 student (1)
I work so hard in this class (2)

Either one of these statements is a red-flag to me.

For my students, only very rarely will a student claiming they're "4.0" actually have a 4.0, or anywhere near a 4.0. Quite the reverse. Most of the "I'm 4.0" students I've discovered to be either currently on academic probation, retaking classes they've failed, and/or otherwise have between the 2.0 and 3.0 GPA range.
Straight-A students don't usually brag.

Straight-A students who lose the straight A usually also see it as a personal failure on their part, not as something to be weaseled out of.  Or anyway that used to be the case.  Maybe it has changed.

No, it hasn't changed. Not that I've seen, anyways. My straight-A students are polite and reserved. If my straight-A students ask me for help, they ask for help on lesson topics. They ask for clarification on exam responses. What they *don't do* is send whiney, non-specific emails. They don't usually ask for extra credit either. Maybe at the end of the term for razor-thin borderline grades, but that's it.

And also, the straight-A students tend to be the *comfortingly strong* straight-A students. Their academic performance is usually good enough to keep their final letter grades well clear of B-grade territory. If I get an actual straight-A student asking for help, it's someone shooting with a 95% or higher in the course who's just obsessing about the two questions that they got wrong on a 50-question exam. They want emotional or professional closure, ha ha. Or heck, half the time I find that it's *me* that is the problem, and I need to improve the exam question.

[Puget]

Ugh. Got one of my least favorite whiney emails today in one of the classes I co-teach, which included:
I'm a 4.0 student (1)
I work so hard in this class (2)

Either one of these statements is a red-flag to me.

For my students, only very rarely will a student claiming they're "4.0" actually have a 4.0, or anywhere near a 4.0. Quite the reverse. Most of the "I'm 4.0" students I've discovered to be either currently on academic probation, retaking classes they've failed, and/or otherwise have between the 2.0 and 3.0 GPA range.
Straight-A students don't usually brag.

Straight-A students who lose the straight A usually also see it as a personal failure on their part, not as something to be weaseled out of.  Or anyway that used to be the case.  Maybe it has changed.

No, it hasn't changed. Not that I've seen, anyways. My straight-A students are polite and reserved. If my straight-A students ask me for help, they ask for help on lesson topics. They ask for clarification on exam responses. What they *don't do* is send whiney, non-specific emails. They don't usually ask for extra credit either. Maybe at the end of the term for razor-thin borderline grades, but that's it.

And also, the straight-A students tend to be the *comfortingly strong* straight-A students. Their academic performance is usually good enough to keep their final letter grades well clear of B-grade territory. If I get an actual straight-A student asking for help, it's someone shooting with a 95% or higher in the course who's just obsessing about the two questions that they got wrong on a 50-question exam. They want emotional or professional closure, ha ha. Or heck, half the time I find that it's *me* that is the problem, and I need to improve the exam question.

I think this really depends on your student population. I get a lot of "I'm a straight A student and pre-med and this B is going to ruin my whole life!". The first non-A grade for a lot of our students comes as a real shock. This is what happens when you put all the straight A high school kids together and they discover they can't all still be top of the class.

[RatGuy]

A student failed to show up for the midterm exam this morning. She later sent an email which began

"I'm sorry to have stood you up on Valentine's Day."

[OneMoreYear]

I met with my whiney email student after class. They wanted me to regrade their assignment because they felt I had graded too harshly.  When I did not agree, there was again the request for extra credit. I did not agree to that either.   This class is the most math-driven course in our program, so (like Puget's pre-med example below), it is the class where students are most likely not to earn an A, even if they are actually "4.0 students" so far.

The most annoying thing is that this is a graduate course. Every year I tell my grad students that no one cares about your graduate GPA. You are expected to pass your classes (A or B level), but no one cares (or at least should care) if you have a 4.0 in grad school (in my opinion). They don't believe me, and I am often the crusher of dreams.

A student failed to show up for the midterm exam this morning. She later sent an email which began
"I'm sorry to have stood you up on Valentine's Day."

This made me smile. I might be a little forgiving due solely to the amusement factor.

[mamselle]

A student failed to show up for the midterm exam this morning. She later sent an email which began

"I'm sorry to have stood you up on Valentine's Day."

Like!

Chuckle....

M.

[the_geneticist]

Ugh. Got one of my least favorite whiney emails today in one of the classes I co-teach, which included:
I'm a 4.0 student (1)
I work so hard in this class (2)

Either one of these statements is a red-flag to me.

For my students, only very rarely will a student claiming they're "4.0" actually have a 4.0, or anywhere near a 4.0. Quite the reverse. Most of the "I'm 4.0" students I've discovered to be either currently on academic probation, retaking classes they've failed, and/or otherwise have between the 2.0 and 3.0 GPA range.
Straight-A students don't usually brag.

Straight-A students who lose the straight A usually also see it as a personal failure on their part, not as something to be weaseled out of.  Or anyway that used to be the case.  Maybe it has changed.

No, it hasn't changed. Not that I've seen, anyways. My straight-A students are polite and reserved. If my straight-A students ask me for help, they ask for help on lesson topics. They ask for clarification on exam responses. What they *don't do* is send whiney, non-specific emails. They don't usually ask for extra credit either. Maybe at the end of the term for razor-thin borderline grades, but that's it.

And also, the straight-A students tend to be the *comfortingly strong* straight-A students. Their academic performance is usually good enough to keep their final letter grades well clear of B-grade territory. If I get an actual straight-A student asking for help, it's someone shooting with a 95% or higher in the course who's just obsessing about the two questions that they got wrong on a 50-question exam. They want emotional or professional closure, ha ha. Or heck, half the time I find that it's *me* that is the problem, and I need to improve the exam question.

I think this really depends on your student population. I get a lot of "I'm a straight A student and pre-med and this B is going to ruin my whole life!". The first non-A grade for a lot of our students comes as a real shock. This is what happens when you put all the straight A high school kids together and they discover they can't all still be top of the class.

We get some of those too.  It's even worse with the freshman class who are coming out of 2 years of Pandemic high school. Lots of them are shocked that they don't just get 100% for answering all of the worksheet questions, as if correctness & completeness are just optional.

[kiana]

We get some of those too.  It's even worse with the freshman class who are coming out of 2 years of Pandemic high school. Lots of them are shocked that they don't just get 100% for answering all of the worksheet questions, as if correctness & completeness are just optional.

Yep.

Last semester I had one who would race through the classwork, write a random number by each question (whether or not the answer was numerical), and then get up and turn it in and leave. Unsurprisingly, their score on each test was in the low single digits.

[the_geneticist]

Got this one today:

Hi [the_genetcist],
I did really bad on my midterm and I'm really concerned about my grade. Is it okay if I retake it ?

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Got this one today:

Hi [the_genetcist],
I did really bad on my midterm and I'm really concerned about my grade. Is it okay if I retake it ?

Ha ha ha!

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I've got one.

Stu just emailed me and asked if it's possible to pass with a "C" in the course. Hmm, let's see. You haven't turned in ANYTHING at all this semester and we're over 1/4 of the way through. If you get a 100% on the rest of the assignments, then you can scrape by with a "C." Is this likely to happen? Probably not- especially since the student couldn't figure out the course grade and had to ask me!

[Parasaurolophus]

That one always weirds me out a little. It's pretty simple math, especially if you brute force it with guesstimate grades instead of figuring out by formula what you'd need to pass. That's why we give them each grade's weight. It's not like it's a proprietary algorithm.

[apl68]

We get some of those too.  It's even worse with the freshman class who are coming out of 2 years of Pandemic high school. Lots of them are shocked that they don't just get 100% for answering all of the worksheet questions, as if correctness & completeness are just optional.

Yep.

Last semester I had one who would race through the classwork, write a random number by each question (whether or not the answer was numerical), and then get up and turn it in and leave. Unsurprisingly, their score on each test was in the low single digits.

Blanket passing of high school students due to the pandemic isn't helping anybody much in the long run.

[marshwiggle]

We get some of those too.  It's even worse with the freshman class who are coming out of 2 years of Pandemic high school. Lots of them are shocked that they don't just get 100% for answering all of the worksheet questions, as if correctness & completeness are just optional.

Yep.

Last semester I had one who would race through the classwork, write a random number by each question (whether or not the answer was numerical), and then get up and turn it in and leave. Unsurprisingly, their score on each test was in the low single digits.

Blanket passing of high school students due to the pandemic isn't helping anybody much in the long run.

As a general principle, saying  "Since Group X is going to have real trouble meeting criterion Y, let's just waive criterion Y for them" is dumb. (Unless criterion Y had no real value to begin with. In that case, get rid of it, don't just waive it.)

[the_geneticist]

We get some of those too.  It's even worse with the freshman class who are coming out of 2 years of Pandemic high school. Lots of them are shocked that they don't just get 100% for answering all of the worksheet questions, as if correctness & completeness are just optional.

Yep.

Last semester I had one who would race through the classwork, write a random number by each question (whether or not the answer was numerical), and then get up and turn it in and leave. Unsurprisingly, their score on each test was in the low single digits.

Blanket passing of high school students due to the pandemic isn't helping anybody much in the long run.

And it creates & reinforces the idea that they don't have to meet any standards ever.  I'm seeing a huge increase in problems that used to be rare.  They are shocked that we are serious about things like attendance, due dates, and not giving full points for minimal contribution.  The students earning As are mostly the same as usual, but it's the folks in the B and lower range that are having a really hard time adjusting.